The Writings of a Triathlete Wannabe training for UltraTrail Australia 2017

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Last Long Ride

The week has passed quickly and it has been busy. My last big week of training before the taper has been uneventful and not too bad.

I ran on Monday with a 2 hour run but split into a treadmill session with 30 minutes at Marathon pace and the rest a little slower . Managed to run 21 km .On Tuesday it was the last 1.5 hour session on the Birwood circuit and again it was a good effort although i felt I was slower with the legs still fatigued from the run the night before.I managed a 62km ride with the cycle from and back to the city from Nedlands. I had a massage at lunch time which did help the sore muscles and in the evening I did the run session.it was 4 x 1km at threshold pace and 6 x 600 at threshold pace with a warm up and cool down .Managed 12.5km.

On Wednesday , I got down to the swim session and felt tired but kept up .It was a bigger session then normal and with the warm up and cool down , I did 2.9km .the main set was 500m at medium and threshold , 300m at medium and threshold and 3x 200m .

Thursday , I skipped the ride in the morning and did my run at lunch time it was an easy run for an hour and in the evening I rode my bike home from work and again to swim and work on Friday morning. The swim on Friday was short but a little harder with a short fast set. we did a 50 easy , 100 fast , 50m easy and 100m fast , four times and then a cool down of 200m medley and 200m easy .I felt a lot better but I am still slow. I did manage to remain reasonably strong for the whole set and keep up with the middle group in the lane .

Saturday was the last long ride of 5 hours and a30 minute run off the bike .I started off with Johnny Hawkins and Mez at 4.30 am from South Perth doing 4 sets of threshold efforts. There was a good stiff tail wind down going out .We hit 80km and then turned around hitting the headwind although i felt it wasn't as bad a s2 weeks ago. we took turns at the front and that helped with Johnny being the strongest rider amongst us and pushing a higher speed. i ran comfortably off the bike although I did feel the heat. I had 4 bidons of water and Gatorade , my gels in a flask and dates and snakes for added carbohydrates and 1800mg of salt in the gels. Had one pee stop on the bike and one on the run.

Sunday , the legs were feeling pretty good after the ride and run on Saturday and I had a good nights sleep. drove down to Coogee to swim with Les and Trevor.(Trevor didn't make it as he was watching rugby last night and slept in). the winds was up and so the water was a little choppy .Made it hard in the beginning but i did manage to get a bit more comfortable after the initial spluttering and coughing and swallowing of sea water. did a short swim of 1.5km and then coffee.

The week has rushed by but glad I managed to finish all the programme without too much difficulties..